a) Is "respect" really so important to you that you are willing to sacrifice a 25 year career? Surely if the pay is good and you enjoy that's all that matters.
b) By switching professions to a more "respected/cool" one do you not think you're just contributing to the problem of programmers not being taken seriously?
By using "cool", I get the impression that you're thinking more about respect from people outside work, rather than those you are working with. I think the article was talking about respect from the people you work with and work under, in the sense that if you are not respected, then you likely won't get paid what you are worth. From the point of view, point (a) is a contradiction - if you are not respected by the company you work for, the pay won't be good.
Whatever people say about "lawyers", people tend to have a lot of respect for their lawyers. It's lawyers as an aggregate that people tend to stereotype.
Part of the respect is a better pay, which is important to me as I have small children to care about. But the main reason is that so far I enjoy learning quantitative finance.
" contributing to the problem of programmers not being taken seriously"
I don't know. Maybe switching professions is an extreme thing, but gaining some knowledge in a specific domain (other than programming) is a good advice to every programmer.
Being respected in that sense is extremely important. First of all, people need to pay the bills, which you can't do if your work is viewed as a commodity and you're therefore in wage competition with 22-year-olds and outsourcing shops. Second and more importantly, for the types of people who learn programming to enjoy their jobs requires a certain amount of autonomy that isn't usually granted to non-managerial workers.
b) By switching professions to a more "respected/cool" one do you not think you're just contributing to the problem of programmers not being taken seriously?